Security networks and counter-terrorism: a reflection on the limits of adversarial isomorphism

摘要: For many observers the September 11, 2001 attacks confirmed the dawn of a “new” terrorism: one that would distinguish itself from conventional forms of political violence by its advanced degree of decentralization. The “old” ideological terrorism, organized under a traditional hierarchy, with a political agenda, and a readiness to claim responsibility for its actions, has allegedly been replaced with a terrorism characterized by mystico-religious motivations justifying catastrophic consequences, prepared to use weapons of mass destruction, and operating under a decentralized structure. The pyramidal terrorist organization, which mirrors their military and command principles, would be transformed into a distributed structure capable of enduring repeated attacks and operating when its “control center” is temporarily or definitively weakened (Gunaratna, 2004; Hoffman, 2004; Jurgensmeyer, 2000; Laqueur, 1999; Lesser, Hoffman, Arquilla, Ronfeldt, Zanini and Jenkins, 1999).However, as Maurice Roche so well put it,“without memory, everything is new.” Whether it is the anarchist wave that fell upon Europe and North America at the end of the 19th century, the Algerian terrorism that spurred Algeria’s decolonization during the 1960s, or the Vietcong guerrillas, all of these movements had networks that operated in a way that challenged the large hierarchical state structures battling them (Deflem, 2002). Charles Tilly (2005) demonstrated how for several centuries “trust networks” have enabled ethnic and religious minorities to guard against the “malfeasance, mistakes and failures” of their members, allowing them to endure hostile political and economic …